Prepping for a K-Pop Concert Immersive Experience

As I am writing this, it is exactly one week until this 55-year-old mom of a “grownup” attends her very first K-Pop concert.

I live in a city where, between us and our neighbors south of the border, there is a population of more than 3 million avid music lovers. And a good portion of us has discovered the K-Pop genre… bigly. K-Pop nights are hitting the local nightspots, and amateur dance groups, marketplaces, and cupsleeve events are popping up everywhere. My 22-year-old daughter (who was bullied for her love of this emerging sound 10 years ago in middle school) is now getting some of her coworkers hooked on this musical lifestyle.

At the end of this month, my daughters and I will be attending the first actual K-Pop fan meet to grace our community, but that will be another post for later.

Sadly, the big K-Pop groups haven’t quite discovered my hometown yet. Often the K-Pop U.S. tours hit a couple of big coastal cities and make a stop in Dallas or Houston (which, as a West Texan, is as far away as the Los Angeles shows). But occasionally, they discover Colorado and Arizona. Both of these places are at least a five-hour drive for us, but certainly shorter than the 10- to 12-hour jaunts to the West or Gulf Coasts.

Finally, after saving up some money, I took the plunge and got my daughter and me tickets for her favorite group of all time (or at least the past six years), ATEEZ. Soon, we will be immersed in the world of “Halazia,” “Wonderland,” and “Bouncy”.

We had to watch their Coachella show on television, which was actually a pretty fun experience, but by golly, I am seeing them in person for their “Towards the Light: Will to Power” tour soon.

Now, I have been to countless live music experiences, including some huge bands, but this is my first K-Pop venture. I have been promised by more experienced fans they are entirely different beasts from any other concert experience.

Primarily, it is the way the audience interacts. I have been on the edge of mosh pits and crowd surfers for punk concerts and tossed up my rock hands for others, but with K-Pop the fandoms are family.

Most recognizable to non-K-Pop fans may be the lightstick, and my daughter has had hers long before she knew it would be used for its ultimate purpose of lighting up the concert venue. When she and all the other ATINY with their sticks get to the venue, they get to download a QR code that will sync the lightstick’s color with the show. That makes her part of the performance.

One other element is signage. You can bring your own custom small signs, but often you can buy fans, headbands, banners, and other visible reminders that, yes, we love you ATEEZ. If you have a bias, that person gets special signage as well.

Of course, there are often photo ops and pre-concert and post-concert fan gatherings.

Finally, there are your concert outfits. I know everyone loves to dress for concerts of all types. I have worn my boots to country shows, and dressed accordingly for everything from punk to jazz. Yet, K-Pop concertgoers take it to the next level, showing support of fan love rivaled only by pro sports fans and comic convention cosplayers.

There are posts all over social media from K-Pop fans showing off their meticulously curated concert looks. Many times it fits a song or a look one of the members had during a music video. The second my daughter received her tickets as gifts, she began planning her own outfit and is going full-on pirate vibe.

What about me? This is where it got fun because this concert mom needed an outfit. I wanted to be comfortable, yet look like I was having fun. I didn’t want to look too over-the-top like a “Gen-Xer trying too hard,” as my youngest would say. I also didn’t want to spend too much money on new clothes just for show.

I decided to take my own advice and put to use one of my “Bias on the Budget” DIYS, the custom distressed jeans. I had plenty of torn old jeans to work with on this one, so that was easy enough. The pair I found had some holes in less-than-desirable spots, so I used some old t-shirt scraps to fill in the holes. I also clipped the legs of the jeans a little and sewed in a couple of extra t-shirt pieces to create flairs.

Pretty cool, but I wanted it to be group-specific and different from everyone else. I decided to follow the sort of neo-punk attitude of ATEEZ and create some train car-style graffiti. I made stencils of many of the song titles displayed in their various music videos and used some paint markers to create a colorful song list. This would look cool to some fashionistas, but if you love ATEEZ, you will recognize the references. I picked a plain black light shirt, as we are going to be in Phoenix in July. I have spent enough summer days in this city to know melting is not something I want to do.

I already had a perfect hat, too. I made a replica of the “Brain Storm” hat ATEEZ leader Hongjoong created and added a Texas-shaped pin to symbolize how far we’ve come to see this show. I just need to enhance it with some combat boots and knock-off brand Doc Martins and I am good to go.

I know that seems excessive just to see a concert where the performers likely won’t even know we’re there. Yet that is beside the point. When I first started really following K-Pop, I realized, like many fandoms, there is a connection—a connection between the audience, the performance, and the performers they enjoy. There’s a connection between everyone in one big room together not caring about what the world outside the building is doing.

Mostly, there is a connection with people around the globe who all found something they enjoy in the same thing.

You can arrive to see a group, and leave having made a new bunch of friends from all walks of life, but bound together by their ability to do a fan chant and dance move. It doesn’t matter how well they do it because everyone is playing the same game. We know the song and dance, and through that, we know each other.

My daughter’s ATEEZ bias is Seonghwa, and because the meaning of his name loosely translates to “to be a star,” his personal fandom is called Shine Stars in English. I like to think of this like I did when my dad had to leave home on business trips. He said if my brother and I missed him, look up at the moon and tell him “good night.” It is the same moon all of us are looking at no matter where we live.

When I’m at this concert surrounded by people, many much younger than me, all of us, no matter who we are or what we believe, will be enjoying the same star.